On April 12, the army marched north.

After Kou Qianzhi calculated, he said that this day was an auspicious day, he was a Taoist priest, and he was quite familiar with the stars, he said that it was an auspicious day, and Tuoba Tao wished for the Northern Expedition as soon as possible, so he set this day.

So, for a while, the mighty Black Mountain camp suddenly seemed like a giant dragon awakened, and a team began to march from the hinterland, winding towards the north.

Maybe the day Kou Qianzhi said was really a good day, it should have been a rainy spring, but the sun was shining, the sun made the soil hard, but the turf provided the best protection for the hooves of the war horses, so that the soft and hard ground was the most suitable for the army to pull out, and there were few times when the wheels were sunk into the ground.

Before leaving, He Mulan and the other generals were summoned to the camp of Situ Chang Sun Han and told what they were going to do next.

It is nothing more than breaking through the camp of the Rouran, plundering their population, cattle and sheep, and killing their young men and leaders until they reach the court of the Rouran.

For some reason, He Mullan frowned slightly when he heard such an order.

But she knew that this was the way it was, so she just frowned and didn't say anything else.

Just as Mullin had received dozens of slaves, the Montenegrin camp had captured many enemy generals and soldiers. Through interrogation and various means, the Northern Wei Dynasty investigated all the pastures where the herdsmen grazed in Rouran, and even made it clear which tribes often camped where.

Countless scouts had found places with water sources along the way before the Northern Expedition, and the map that Di Yefei had sent back also helped a lot.

In this war, there is no hope of victory for Rouran.

Whether it is the right time, place or people, they don't have all of them.

The route that Hermulan and others were responsible for traveling was on the western front, and Rouran, like the Xiongnu, took the place where the sun rose to the left, like a person with his back to him, so most of the people living on the western front were ordinary herdsmen and other Hu tribes, and the east was inhabited by the descendants of King Rouran Khan and other large tribal lords.

The process of marching is very boring, most of the cavalry in the Northern Wei Dynasty are cavalry, there are also chariot soldiers, most of the foot soldiers are used to attack the city, in the team of the Northern Expedition, the cavalry accounts for the vast majority, which determines that a group of people spend most of their time on horseback.

Want to pee? Dismount and find a place far away.

I want to lead the horse to a far place, and after solving the problem of riding a horse to catch up.

It stands to reason that He Mullan is now the leader of the Tiger Army, but in this respect, he is no different from other soldiers.

I don't know if there is a general who will be dealt with at a convenient time, if he really dies like this, it will be too embarrassing.

He Mulan drank as little water as possible and ate less. Their journey for the first few days was very slow, because they had to occupy the water source and camp in the territory of Rouran, and only after they had a base camp could they use cavalry to plunder everywhere.

Otherwise, if you grab something, but you have no water to drink or cook, in this vast grassland, hunger may not be starving, and death of thirst may not be possible.

On the first night, they stopped at an unknown source of water and set up camp. Because of the baggage with me, the first day was not very fast, and I had not yet entered the territory of Rouran.

The left and right armies of the Montenegrin battalion couldn't wait to engage the worms, and they couldn't help but be a little impatient at this speed, relying on the admiral to appease them.

This was the first time that Hormulan had marched with tens of thousands of men. Along the creek that came out of nowhere, hundreds of thousands of bonfires formed a swaying ribbon of light, and because they were all tented along the water source, it looked like there were two rivers.

All the generals' tents were set up on higher ground, which was said to be higher, but in fact it was not much higher. Peanuts beside Hemulan and other soldiers were fetching water, lighting fires, and burying pots for cooking. When marching, even if it is a general, there is nothing special about it, at most there are subordinates to do it.

That night, Changsun Han summoned them to the military tent, pointed to a few maps, and said, "We will arrive at our destination in two days." Now there are two ways to go, one is to occupy this water source first, and then divide the troops into five ways to break through several large tribes in this vicinity......"

Changsun Han nodded to several major tribes near a water source.

"It's a little bit longer, but it's safer."

"There is another one, the baggage is to walk slowly behind, the cavalry first, break through these five tribes, and then bring the population and booty here with the gotten and set up a tent."

Changsun Han nodded at the water source again.

Yuan Poqiang, the general of the town army of the left army, looked at the map, thought for a while, and said: "Lord Situ, this water source is too big, if you want to occupy it, it will not be occupied in a moment's time, in case the worms get the news and scatter and flee, it will delay the fighters." ”

"Besides, Worm knows this place better than we do, and if we find out where we are first, we will be even more dangerous if we poison the water. Although it is said that there is some risk in the rear, after all, we are cavalry, long in running, and for a day or two, there is no pressure on supplies. ”

Yuan Poqiang hugged his fist.

"The last general thinks that we should break through the tribe first, and then set up camp!"

"What about the rest of you?"

Situ Han will lead the left and right armies because Xia Hong, the general of the right army, was his general, and Yuan Poqiang was his junior who took good care of him in Pingcheng, and there was no situation where the generals were not compatible.

Yuan Poqiang and Situ Han have a good personal relationship, so they naturally dare to put forward other opinions. Xia Hong thought that no matter which one it was, it was almost the same, but he thought about it, and finally said:

"It's nothing more than a quick word, and the last general will also choose the second one."

Once the battle plan has been decided, all that remains is the question of how to divide the troops, and when the scouts send the news back, the attack is on.

"Do not be in a hurry to leave after you have broken through the creeping camp, for this is the season of grazing, and when evening, when the herdsmen who have their own herdsmen return, and then wait for the rabbits, you will be able to catch many herdsmen, cattle and sheep.

Eldest Sun Han knows the worms well.

"If someone runs, don't chase after them. All the way to the royal court will be guarded by our people, and these herdsmen will eventually surrender to us as long as they do not want to die of thirst. ”

"General Xia, if Creep surrenders to us, what will we do? Tie up and wait for someone behind to pick it up? He Mulan couldn't help but speak, "There are also old and weak women and children......"

Changsun Han glanced at her unexpectedly, and after finding out that it was this young general, there was a clear expression in his eyes: "My Great Wei military merit is calculated by the first level, but this attack on the worm is aimed at breaking its root and weakening its national strength, so His Majesty issued an order, if there are young and strong men and women, try to return to the country to serve, those old and weak women and children, if you want to get military merit, as long as you don't go too far, no one should say anything......

"The last general doesn't ask about military merits...... He Mulan was stunned, knowing that Changsun Han had misunderstood, but he didn't seem to have the intention of saying more, and He Mulan couldn't hold him to explain, so he shut up.

With the goal in mind, after the generals returned, they summoned the lieutenant generals and subordinate generals to convey the orders of the commander of the western route; The adjutant general and the subordinate will summon the generals and centurions again and continue to communicate.

In this way, it was passed down from level to level, and everyone knew that there might be a big battle in three days, and everyone was gearing up to fly over as if they were going to fly.

On the other side, the scouts carefully cultivated by the Black Mountain camp were hiding in the grass and behind the rocks, and some did not even need to dodge, as long as they sat there in tattered and old clothes like worms, they could spy on them without any danger.

The worms never thought that the Wei people would come over, even if the Wei people were a country founded by the Xianbei people, and the Xianbei people were also a people on the grassland.

But the Xianbei people left the grassland for too long, they built houses with solid stones and wood, let themselves live in stones and wood, they learned the speech and etiquette of the southerners, and gradually abandoned the blood of the steppe people and became "more civilized" people.

In the eyes of the worms, Rouran didn't have anything to let Da Wei snatch at all.

Cattle and sheep? Cattle and sheep they also have.

Land? Nothing grows in this land except grass.

Dignity? It is they who are being beaten and retreating one after another.

Just as a poor beggar does not fear that a rich man will patronize his dilapidated house, the creeps graze and play peacefully, without any premonition of danger.

A scout sat behind a cart, wearing a fur hat to hide his face, and counted the number of tents the wrigglings had built out of animal skins and sheep felt.

He had to figure out how many men were in this tent, and how many strong men could fight.

The scout saw men sharpening the shafts of arrows and the tips of wooden spears beside carts and tents, a crude weapon that used to be seen in the hands of wriggs heading south.

Now it is used for hunting, and when the winter comes, it will come to hunt our brothers. The scout thought to himself, "The worms are better at archery, but so what, they can't even find much wood." If you really want to fight, you will surrender......

It wasn't all like that, he saw the dancing girl, heard the baby crying, and the woman beat and scolded the child and chased after the running figure.

Not far away, lambs and calves roam freely, and the cattle search for grass, and the smell of mutton spreads from the fire, and the belly of the scouts is like thunder.

I can't look at it like that anymore. The scout said to himself, feeling his heart soften in the smell of it, and his fighting spirit was no longer firm.

'Anyway, I'm almost done, so let's go." ’

He pretended to have a stomach upset and ran away.

"Hey, grandma, why didn't that uncle come and eat sheep together?" A girl was helping her mother roast a sheep when she saw someone running away from the car and blinked strangely.

The woman craned her neck to look at it, and when she saw the person running out with her stomach covered, she smiled and nodded her head: "Haven't you seen the stomach trouble?" The more I smell it, the more sad my stomach becomes. ”

Before the "tummy" scout left the tribe, the ghost made a fool of himself and turned his head.

The little boy in fur was running around on horseback, apparently just learning to ride, when several adults laughed at him wantonly, making him even more out of breath.

"Run, run farther, it's better not to come back......"

The scout jumped on his horse, bowed his head and walked on the reins.

Because it's going to be razed to the ground soon.

***

When the Montenegrin camp and the southbound worms competed, He Mullan felt only two words - "difficult".

They are like hyenas that follow their prey, they are not strong, they are not fierce, they scatter as soon as they hit, but they will also bite you to death when they attack in groups.

They will abandon their companions without hesitation, just to be able to escape. They would also throw out other affiliated tribes, such as the Gaoche, Xianbei, Turkic, or any other race, as cannon fodder, and hide behind them to shoot arrows or run away.

He Mulan hated this race because they had made her see too much blood and tears, because they had no dignity or honor as warriors.

But she just hates, not hates. Because in this era, the development of each nation is often the blood and tears of another nation, she can't change the general trend, nor can she change the hearts of the people, the destruction of the worm is inevitable, what she can do is to be worthy of her heart in the process.

The Tiger Horsemen led by Hemulan set off after the scouts had sent back detailed information about the tribes in the area. The information was so detailed that He Mullan even guessed it, thinking that the scout might be disguised as a worm and swaggered in and shook the information he had gathered.

The scouts of the Montenegrin battalion are all bold, and most of them have some creeping words, so it is not surprising that they can do such a thing.

They did not raise the flag or play it, and although they were not called surprise soldiers, they did not make a big fanfare. There was silence, only the sound of the air that seemed to condense and the clash of armor on the soldiers' bodies.

In their rear, the miscellaneous officers and soldiers of the army watched over their replacement horses, and each of their horses was a freshly changed horse, with sufficient horsepower and ready to charge.

There are eagles flying in the sky, overlooking the centaurs below. He Mulan heard that many tribes in Donghu would raise falcons, and He Mullan didn't know if they were raised by the worms, but at this time she didn't care whether to shoot down these eagles.

The tribe they were going to fight was less than a thousand men.

She brought with her three thousand horsemen.

No matter how you fight, you will win, and with the nature of the worms, I'm afraid that before they start fighting, they will already cry bitterly and surrender, right?

Surrender sooner.

It's good that she has a name for less killing.

The tiger rider soon reached the place where the scouts had been discovered, and as he said, the herdsmen went out in the morning to graze and would not return until late in the evening, and it was best to attack at night.

It was also true that when Mullin led his men to break through the camp, many people did not understand what was happening.

Many of the Wei people and the worms look very similar, they are all tribes of Donghu, they move around, and there are people of all kinds of looks after mixed blood, so when He Mullan rushed into their tribe with a tiger horse, these worms thought that their own cavalry had arrived.

Some old men ran out of the tent, spitting on them, and then were killed by an arrow from an impatient soldier. Everywhere there were the voices of children and women crying, and the tiger riders were worthy of their name, like tigers descending from the mountains, and they were panicked everywhere they went.

There was no crying and begging for mercy as Hermulan imagined, and those who could take up arms or whatever other means to resist resisted, and women drove their herds and flocks against the cavalry.

But how can cattle and sheep resist war horses and Changge? After a while, blood flowed.

"What are they shouting?" Hermulan had no intention of participating in such a massacre, but she was the commander and could not have ordered the attack to stop.

Worms can shoot arrows even for children, and even rabbits can bite people when they are in a hurry.

But she still wondered what the wrigglings were shouting while desperately resisting.

The Northern Expedition of Hermulan brought out peanuts. She didn't understand any soft words, and she carried peanuts, also to have a translator at a critical time.

Peanut's face was complicated, and he replied softly to He Mulan: "They ...... They said that it was not yet time for the winter war, and that last year's cattle and sheep had already been handed over...... They seem to be thinking of us as those tribal masters. ”

He Mulan was stunned, he didn't expect them to shout this.

At this time, this camp tent has been broken, and He Mulan had ordered before he came that it was not allowed to kill people who did not resist at will, those were prisoners, the population of Great Wei, and the spoils of war.

But when you really kill the red eye, there are also manslaughters.

A tiger rider was about to step on a child's body, but was skimmed by a horse that suddenly rushed from the side, and he deviated a few steps in the other direction.

The man was about to open his mouth to scold the other party for not being long-sighted, but suddenly saw that it was He Mulan sitting on the horse, and he was so shocked that he quickly shut up.

"We are warriors, not brutes." He Mulan said with an ugly face. "Prepare to collect the troops, tie up these captives and leave them to the people behind, leaving two hundred cavalry ready to meet the returning herdsmen, and the others will go with me to attack the other tribes."

"General, we haven't cleaned up the battlefield yet......"

"When you're done cleaning, all the tribes in this area are gone!" He Mullan ordered the trumpets to be blown, and ordered two more centurions to stay in the camp, and continued eastward with the tiger horsemen.

There were about seven or eight tribes in the area, and she had to pick up all the camps before sunset, and then return to the place where she had set up camp at night.

If it were daytime, so many people would be galloping in one direction, and their whereabouts would soon be revealed.

The second, the third, the fourth, one tribe after another were razed to the ground by the whirlwind of Hermulan's men.

No one knew why their commander left as soon as he was in a hurry to get there, but because Hemulan's name as a "wise general" was too obvious, even though they were confused and even a little dissatisfied with the lack of time to collect loot, they still followed their lord and continued eastward.

Only Hermulan herself knew that she was not in a hurry, but afraid of the desperate and hateful eyes of countless women and children looking at her after the battle.

Why would anyone be so happy with such a look? It should never be a pleasure to be hated at any time.

By the time the scouts arrived at the last tent, perhaps the Wei people had made too much noise, or perhaps a few creeps who had escaped earlier had passed on the news, leaving only an empty tent.

The cattle and sheep were still grazing, and the fire was even roasting the cattle and sheep at night, and they were cooking some broth, but there was not a single person in the whole tribe.

It is very easy for young people to run across horses, but it is so difficult for a tribe to run away completely, because they have old people, children, pregnant women, and sick people, and they are not high-rollers.

At this time, it was getting late, and although several of Hemulan's generals were a little regretful, today's results were enough to satisfy them, so Na Luohun looked at the camp with pity and said to Hemulan:

"The people here should have received the news early and ran away, are we going to join the other generals now?"

In each tribe, they left men and horses to count the spoils, and the miscellaneous servants did not dare to withhold them, and those young men and women, old men and children, would be driven back to Wei, but most of the time, only the strongest ones would make it to Great Wei alive.

If it were other generals, they would probably have ordered their troops to search when they saw the smoke curling here, but He Mullan was already physically and mentally exhausted from noon to evening today, and she was not a person with any ambitions for war exploits, so she followed his words:

"Leave ......"

At this moment, an inaudible cry came from nowhere. Although it is not very obvious, in the empty camp, the sudden cry of a baby is very obvious.

"I ...... Did I hear me wrong? ”

"I think I hear it too, there are children crying?"

"Why does it seem to come out of the ground?"

"Strange, does the Creep have a cellar too?"

Without waiting for Hermulan's order, a number of experienced scouts with Tiger Knights began to search the tent.

The Wrenchers are often oppressed by large tribes, and they are constantly fighting within themselves, so it is not surprising that there is a place to hide.

He Mullan wiped his face wearily, not wanting to see anything more.

She even thought she didn't hear the cry.

But the eyes of these scouts and Gong Cao who accompanied the army were bright, these people were not her people, and she couldn't order them not to continue searching.

A few moments later, a hole hidden in a remote corner of the tribe was discovered. Perhaps it was because it had become common for the Rouran people to raid the population, so many tribes had hidden places prepared at the beginning, but Hemulan's cavalry came too quickly, and the other tribes did not have time to hide people, but the farthest place hid a lot.

The hole was covered with felt and piled with a lot of fresh grass, which looked like a very ordinary place to store fodder, but it was still found.

Many old men and women were taken out of it, and it seemed that the children and young people had been taken away, and what shocked Hermulan the most was that the cry was really from a baby!

A pregnant woman actually gave birth at this time!

In a pool of blood, the pregnant woman stared at the bottom of the pit with wide eyes, and the blood under her body went deep into the dirt, staining it a maroon.

She's not dead yet, but she's not far from it.

Beside her, lay a little baby with a black body, little exposed, telling everyone that he was a boy.

He had just come into the world, and he let out his first cry, and instead of the joyful laughter of welcoming the birth of a man, he was greeted with a deadly hand that covered his mouth and nose.

Everyone, including those Gong Cao and the scouts, looked at the bottom of the pit at a loss, and this scene was more depressing than killing enemies on the battlefield and seeing corpses strewn all over the field.

As the first pit was discovered, several more pits were turned out, and almost all of them were old people and people with disabilities, but those who could ride horses had already left.

"General, what should I do?"

As a personal guard, Mangu rubbed his hands, and there was an indescribable depression in his heart.

"These people ......"

Hermulan was still standing, and she hadn't changed her posture since the child was seen by her.

Her breathing was long and short, and her chest rose and fell. Her eyes were fixed on the hole in front of her, as if intently studying why such a thing could appear in a flat field.

She walked slowly, crouched down and touched the baby's face and neck.

Soft and smooth to the touch, it seems that the child is still alive, but he has no pulse at all, and there are no physiological features. Probably because the number of people who started was too heavy, or the speed at which the scouts were looking for them was too slow, the child would not be able to live even if he was given CPR.

He was very strong, with cloudy substances such as amniotic fluid on his face and head, and the umbilical cord was even on his navel.

He Mullan had seen the corpses of babies in the past, and there were always irresponsible parents who abandoned their babies in the wilderness or other places where they could not survive.

At this time, Hermulan and his colleagues would blurt out curses while treating these little creatures with care, sending him or her away, and praying for their peace and joy in the next life.

But she never thought that she would indirectly cause the death of a child.

The worm may be guilty, but what is the sin of a newborn child?

"Peanuts, help me sue them ......"

He Mulan stood up slowly, gritted his teeth and said: "We are the soldiers and horses of the Wei State, surrender and do not kill, we are also human beings, we do not kill people casually, nor eat people......"

Peanut stammered a few times as if awakened suddenly, and finally roared out loud at Mullan's words in a soft voice.

He Mulan ordered the hole to be filled, the baby and the pregnant woman buried, and the mother and child to be buried together, not to be harassed again.

She couldn't do anything but this.

As the miscellaneous servants and generals who arrived later came to deal with the "spoils of war", these old men were tied to ropes and, together with cattle and sheep, were driven to the place where the army on the Western Front had gathered the "spoils".

If they had met other generals, these useless old men and the sick and ill would probably have been killed as a military merit, and when the one at the bottom of the pit came out, Hermulan ordered them to be taken away, and no one raised any objections.

These worms thought that what was waiting for them was the enemy's butcher's knife, but they didn't expect that the other party didn't even kill the old, weak, sick and disabled, and they wept bitterly one by one, and kept kowtowing to Hemulan.

An old man cried very sadly, he cried for a long time, with hot tears, the pain was silent, crying weaker than women, more flustered than children.

Why did he cry, and how long did he cry like that? What did he do after crying, could this group of old, weak, sick and disabled people really survive when they went to the big tent?

No one can know.

Just began the Northern Expedition, and He Mulan had already risen to understand the heart of returning to the field.

"Mulan, it's really ...... compared to the 'invader'"

He Mullan smiled wryly.

That silky touch seemed to be still at her fingertips.

“…… I prefer the 'Defender'. ”